I Wonder
by Queequg471
Summary: If you ever came back home to Carolina, I wonder what you'd say to me....Brennan thinks about her childhood.


**A/N: Here's a new oneshot. I'm not really sure how I feel about it, but I always felt this song was perfect for Brennan. I'm working on one from Booth's childhood, which I hope to get posted in the next day or two, but I'm moving into school, so I might be busy for awhile. **

**Please enjoy, and please do review!**

**Disclaimer: I'm really, really not Hart Hanson. I promise :P.**

_Sometimes I think about you.  
Wonder if you're out there somewhere thinkin' about me._

It was buried in her drawer, where she knew Booth wouldn't go looking for it. The box was old and worn, but Brennan liked it that way. It still carried the same scent it had all those years ago, probably due to the fact that Brennan barely took it out.

Brennan's mind reminded her it was illogical to create a tie between a physical object and a long-dead person, even more so to wonder if that person might still be thinking of her in some other-wordly dimension, but this was one of the rare times that she was able to disregard what was logical, what was rational.

Today had been a bad day. The bones they had found turned out to be the remains of a young mother, murdered by her boss's wife, after she had found out her husband and the victim were having an affair. Brennan and Booth had been forced to go tell the victim's two young children that the mother they so adored, the mother who had just been trying to make a life for all three of them, was gone forever, and they were not allowed so much as a goodbye.

The parallel between their lives and her own life was not a comparison Brennan wanted to make, and Booth knew it. She had felt him squeeze her hand briefly as they left the home, the children's faces etched into her mind, in an expression of loneliness and fear Brennan knew all too well.

Booth had gone home briefly to shower and change, and Brennan had somehow found herself here, listening to the box's hinges creak as she slid it out of the drawer. It opened easily, and pictures spilled into Brennan's lap.

She took a minute to breathe in the musty scent the box let out. The scent of lavender shampoo and lilac perfume and the air of someone Brennan would never be able to erase from her mind. Her eyes closed as the memories played like a video behind her eyes.

_The picnic on the lawn. The old room with the too-small bed. The dresser with the dolphin belt she would always steal. The small, warm kitchen, with the fresh smells always coming from it._

_Waving goodbye as the car pulled away. _

Her eyes snapped open, filling with tears. The box wobbled on her lap. Her mother's box. Brennan caught it and set it off to the side, batting her eyelashes to blink the tears away.

She picked up one of the photographs and found herself staring at her own reflection, age fourteen. Her younger self smiled up at her, and Brennan could barely recognize this girl, who seemed so carefree and happy. Was that really once her?

The next photo was of her mother and her. In the picture, they were almost mirror images. Their eyes, cheekbones, hair, everything was the same.

Brennan lifted her head to look at herself in the mirror. Bone structure changes from adolescence to adulthood, she knew. But that didn't explain the twinge of fear she felt when she couldn't find her mother's features in her adult face as she could in her childhood. Except for her eyes. Ice-blue, just like her mother's. Like the woman who Brennan had wished back on so many occasions.

Like the woman who had left. And never come back.

_And would you even recognize,  
The woman that your little girl has grown up to be.  
'Cause I look in the mirror and all I see,  
Are your blue eyes looking back at me.  
They're the only thing you ever gave to me at all._

More photos, more portraits of a family, who, on the surface, appeared to be a regular, loving family. Brennan had few and scattered memories of her family life, but one she could remember vividly was the one memory she wanted desperately to forget.

It was unseasonably warm that day, she remembered. Fifteen-year-old Brennan had been making plans to go out with her friend Georgia. She remembered entering her mother's room to find her packing a box. Brennan couldn't quite see what was in it, but she did remember seeing clothes lining the top.

"What's in the box, Mom?" Temperance had asked.

"Christmas stuff." Her mother had replied quickly.

Temperance wrinkled her nose. "Clothes?"

Her mother chuckled. "Well, you can't expect me to just leave your gifts out in the open, can you honey?"

"I guess not." Temperance replied. Her mother had been smiling, but Temperance had caught a shadow of sadness moving in her eyes.

Her mother had turned around slowly, as if she was preparing herself to tell Temperance something important. Temperance waited impatiently while her mother hemmed and hawed, but all her mother had said was "your father and I are going out Christmas shopping," before hurrying from the room like this was tragic news.

"Okaayyy…" Temperance had said, following her mother down the stairs. "Well, can I go out with Georgia?"

"Uh…sure dear. Be…be home by nine." Her last words were strained, confusing Temperance even more.

Her mother looked down at Temperance, her gaze suddenly loving and sad. Christine brought a finger down Temperance's cheekbone.

"My beautiful girl," she whispered. Temperance frowned.

"Mom, are you okay? You're acting like kind of like you're dying."

Christine had given a wry laugh, her fingers still trailing over her daughter's face.

"No, honey. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

Her parents had left in their old car, waving and hugging goodbye, for a length of time that both Russ and Temperance had thought odd. But once they were gone, nothing more was thought of it.

Not until that night, when Tempe returned from Georgia's, to find them still gone, without a trace.

_Oh I hear the weather's nice in California._

_There's sunny skies, as far as I can see.  
If you ever come back home to Carolina.  
I wonder what you'd say to me._

In the years that followed, Temperance found herself thrust in the world of an orphan. Her family had vanished in a single moment, and she was now a mostly unwelcome visitor drifting at the edges of other families, families that stayed together, but had no room for her. She was an outsider in every respect. She steered herself through high school, mostly friendless, because what was the point of having friends? Her own parents had left her. Friends had no obligations to her, what was stopping them from leaving her?

All the normal teenage milestones, Brennan either ignored, or attempted on her own. Just when she thought it was getting easier, a girl would come to school, glowing, bragging to her friends about how her mother had taught her to braid her hair, and didn't it look amazing?

The words had twisted the knife in Temperance's heart just a little further in. How could they? How _could _they just abandon her like that?

_I think about how it ain't fair.  
That you weren't there to braid my hair like mothers do.  
You weren't around to cheer me on.  
Help me dress for my high school prom like mothers do._

The foster homes passed in an endless blur, but Brennan would force herself not to care how many families deemed her not good enough. She began to take refuge in books. She had always read before, but now, books had an extra comfort. She could soak up endless amounts of knowledge, more than anyone. It gave her a special feeling she was sure she could not get elsewhere, to be better, smarter than anyone else. And books never rejected her. They welcomed her. She could immerse herself in worlds of fiction, sailing with great explorers, climbing great mountains, or simply sitting, basking in the feeling of finally belonging somewhere. The library became somewhat of a home to Brennan. She would stay till closing, reading anything she thought looked interesting.

As comforting as this was for Brennan, the ache of her parent's abandonment still stung. Sometimes she even found herself wondering if she was the one to blame. Had she not been good enough for her parent? Not smart enough? Not pretty enough?

Or had they simply thought that Temperance and Russ, both teenagers, didn't need them anymore?

Oftentimes, Brennan would lie awake at night and wonder where they were. Were they stuck sleeping in their old car, whatever plan they might have had ineffective against the cruelty of the world? Did they have friends? Were they using their real names, just in case Russ or Temperance came looking for them? Did they want to be found at all?

But most of all, the niggling little voice inside Temperance's head berated her with one question:

_Do they ever even think about me? _

And _always_, that thought was accompanied by a lone tear trailing slowly down her cheek.

_Did you think I didn't need you here,  
To hold my hand, to dry my tears?  
Did you even miss me through the years at all?_

Even now, in her adulthood, Brennan still carried the scars of her childhood, both physical and psychological. The last time she had dropped a dish, even though she was alone in her apartment, she still found herself curling her head down to her chest, in preparation for a beating, rationality be damned.

To this day, she still stared at the trunk of her car, and for moments she was lost in the hell of being in a tiny, confined space, food and waterless, and completely terrified.

And her parents had done this too her. They had left her, just a child all alone in a terrifying world. They had exposed her to this torment.

Brennan still beat down fits of anger around her father, but her mother wasn't there to blame. She wasn't and would never be there.

_Forgiveness._

_Such a simple word_

_But it's so hard to do_

_When you've been hurt._

Sometimes Temperance wondered whether it was better or worse that her father had come back into her life.

Certainly, it was somewhat comforting knowing what had happened to her parents. But she often wondered whether it was worse, not knowing or being weighted with the knowledge that her parents were…criminals. That they had left Temperance in this life of complete and total loneliness because their own crimes had endangered the lives of not only them, but of Russ and Temperance.

Nowadays, everyone thought she had forgiven her father. Even Booth, although Brennan suspected that he saw the subtle tenseness whenever she was around him.

She allowed him to work at the Jeffersonian, she saw him socially occasionally, and they talked.

But it was not forgiveness.

Because every time he got just a little bit too close, every time he talked about her in childhood, there was a picture in Brennan's mind. A picture that didn't include him, because he had _chosen_ to take himself out of it.

And the pain of the past came back up, just as sharp as it had been yesterday. A black eye, earned for leaving the TV remote out. A cruel mocking joke:

"_So ugly her parents had to get away. You hear? Tempe's a little orphan Annie."_

It was times like this that Brennan couldn't even begin to fathom forgiving her father. And her mother?

There was not a clear enough picture of her mother to even comprehend her situation, let alone give forgiveness to a woman who had made all the happy memories of Brennan's childhood disappear in a single act.

And that, Brennan hated most of all.

_Oh, I hear the weather's nice in California_

_And just in case you're wondering about me…_

The flow of memories came to an abrupt halt as Brennan started at the sound of a key in the lock. Booth.

They had been together for eight months. It was thus far, the most stable, loving relationship of Brennan's life. If she was completely honest with herself, she had always thought it was her who drove all the men in her life away. But Booth had refused to move. No matter how much she pushed at him, no matter how many times she had tried to run, Booth had always been there.

_From now on I won't be in Carolina_

There was one photo that stuck out from the mess of childhood memories. Brennan picked it up curiously.

Booth smiled up from the photo, his arm slung around Brennan who had a reluctant smile on her face as she gazed up at him.

In the background, the squints – Cam, Hodgins, Sweets, and Wendell – looked down at the couple affectionately. On the back, Booth had written a message.

_Bones: Told you there was more than one type of family. _

_Bones's family, November 2009._

At the words, Brennan felt small rays of light spill onto the darkness that shrouded her past. It was the oddest sensation, but it suddenly began to dawn on her.

There were some things that couldn't be taken back. Some things that just couldn't be fixed, no matter how many amends were attempted. Sometimes, she supposed, all we could do was try to move forward to a better place.

_Your little girl is off…_

Her past would probably always haunt her to a degree, but she needed a new picture. The one that summed her childhood, it only consisted of her alone, and she wasn't alone anymore.

She needed a picture – a metaphorical picture – she reminded herself, which would keep telling her she wasn't alone. That the scars of her childhood didn't have to be the sum of her existence.

_Your little girl is off…_

"Hey, Bones!" the male voice from behind her made Brennan jump.

Booth caught her arms with a laugh, leaning down and giving her a firm kiss.

"Deep in thought, huh?"

"One can't logically be deep in thought, Booth." Brennan replied absentmindedly. "Thought isn't a physical substance, like sand or water."

Booth dismissed it with his usual "English, Bones", but Brennan rested her hand on his cheek, stroking it gently.

"I love you, Booth."

His face relaxed into a wide smile and he reached down, lacing her fingers with his.

"Love you too," he whispered.

_Your little girl is off to Tennessee._

_**The End.**_


End file.
